The Mirai botnet is just the most high-profile example of the new weaponization of DDoS. Attacks are stronger than ever, and multilayer defenses are needed to prevent disruption and distraction, says Darren Anstee of Arbor Networks.

The FBI says reported losses due to internet crime last year totaled $1.3 billion, based on nearly 300,000 complaints logged with its Internet Complaint Center. It warns that CEO fraud, ransomware, tech-support fraud and extortion are becoming increasingly prevalent.

The U.S. government on Wednesday issued its most direct and technically detailed advisory about North Korea's hacking activity to date, warning that the country continues to target U.S. media, aerospace, financial and critical infrastructure sectors.

Bad security habits of consumers whose use of apps is skyrocketing is leading to increased risks for businesses as they ramp up their use of apps as well, says Neil Wu Becker, a global vice president at A10 networks, who emphasizes the need to enforce best practices.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is taking steps to have more cloud service providers serve the government. But are the security requirements too tough for smaller players to achieve?

Adam Mudd has been sentenced to a two-year prison term after he pleaded guilty to developing and selling "Titanium Stresser," an on-demand DDoS attack tool tied to over 1.7 million attacks worldwide. Separately, Britain's high court ruled that Lauri Love can fight a U.S. extradition request.

Good news for Microsoft Windows users: The Equation Group exploit tools dumped this month by Shadow Brokers don't work against currently supported versions of Windows, largely thanks to patches Microsoft released in March. But who tipped off Microsoft?

The U.S. regulation that forbid ISPs from selling information about web activity without a customer's permission is gone. But it's still possible to maintain privacy on the Web even if prying eyes are watching.

Canadian authorities narrowly escaped a data breach by stopping an intrusion at the country's statistics agency. The cyberattack used a zero-day vulnerability in Apache Struts 2, which has now been patched.

The source code for the Mirai botnet has been updated to launch DDoS amplification/reflection attacks, although so far that capability hasn't been used, says Gary at Arbor Networks. Even so, DDoS defense planning remains essential.

When it comes to massive DDoS attacks powered by the likes of a Mirai botnet, "the sky is not falling," says ESET security researcher Cameron Camp. But organizations do need to prepare - and here's where to start.

New ransomware circulating via BitTorrent is disguised as software that purports to allow Mac users to crack popular Adobe and Microsoft applications. Separately, new ransomware calling itself Trump Locker appears to be the previously spotted VenusLocker ransomware in disguise.

At the request of German authorities, British police have arrested a suspected hacker involved in last year's disruption of 1 million Deutsche Telekom customers' routers via Mirai malware, which targets default credentials on internet-connected devices.